The present disclosure relates generally to health and nutrition. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to systems and methods for manufacturing multi-compartment products that are shelf-stable and include a wet food component, a dry food component and no artificial preservatives.
Methods of preserving foods including, for example, refrigeration and freezing, are well known. These methods, however, may not always provide optimal results for product development or marketing of a specific product. For example, while it is possible to refrigerate or freeze food products to extend the shelf-life of the product, a product may be designed to be marketed to a consumer on a retail store shelf that is not located in a refrigerated or frozen foods section of a store. To achieve shelf-stability in such instances, many food products currently on the market utilize some form of an artificial product preservative. Preservatives are chemicals that can keep packaged or processed foods in edible condition for long periods of time. Such additives, although approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for human consumption, can still pose health risks to consumers and can change the organoleptic properties of food products.
In contrast to the use of chemical preservatives, some commercial products are manufactured using multiple manufacturing systems where the individual components of multi-component products are separately packaged and then combined as a kit or assembly in a secondary operation. Due to the number of separate manufacturing steps and physical locations required to complete such steps, manufacturing of such products can be costly and not economical for large scale manufacturing.
Accordingly, a need exists for a shelf-stable, multi-component product that includes a wet food component, a dry food component and no artificial preservatives. Additionally, a need exists for a manufacturing process for producing a single, dual compartment package containing both a wet food component and a dry food component without the use of artificial preservatives.